Seattle Seahawks Land Charlie Whitehurst: Can He be Matt Hasselbeck Part Two?

It is still going to be Hasselbeck under center to start 2010, but if they played their cards right, it will be Hasselbeck version II in CharlieWhitehurst for the future.

Considering that many felt Seattle needed to do SOMETHING to secure the future of the QB position, it was a choice of drafting an unknown, or trading for a relatively unknown.

Both options are indeed risky.

With Whitehurst you are getting a guy who has already been in the league a few years, and has sat on the bench learning.

This move could be viewed as a head start to what a QB we would have drafted would be doing, except they would probably not have had the extended time to learn as Whitehurst has.

The risk is that Whitehurt’s ceiling is just not that high. Why has no one else taken a shot on him? He has no pass attempts during the regular season, and his preseason play didn’t knock anyone’s socks off.

Still, there is potential for this being an excellent move. The last time Seattle took a chance on another team’s reserve, he turned into a pro-bowl quarterback for us.

The difference being that Holmgren wasn’t going after Hasselbeck without an advanced personal scouting report.

If you remember back, however, the move for Hasselbeck was not popular, and his play was not very encouraging during his early years.

Because of the time and trust Holmgren had in Hasselbeck, he stuck with him and was allowed to develop.

Will Pete Carroll afford Whitehurst the same luxury?

It didn’t help Hasselbeck that he had Trent Dilfer sitting on the bench ready to go, as far as fans patience with him. It did however, help tremendously for Hasselbeck's development as a player to have Dilfer there with him.

For Whitehurst, once Hasselbeck is gone, it will be his to lose.

So Seattle is hoping they can pull the rabbit out of the hat for a second time, taking a unknown reserve and plugging them in.

For this to work, part of it is on Hasselbeck as well. He needs to be the same kind of mentor Dilfer was for him.

While the situation has similarities, there are different circumstances.

Hasselbeck had a prior relationship with his coaching staff, something Whitehurst will have to work without.

That isn’t to say it will limit his chance of success, but he must prove himself this year to the coaching staff, even if it is just in practice.

There is debate whether we gave up too much for Whitehurst, but it did allow us to not reach for a QB during this draft.

Pete Carroll and his staff will be able to assess whether Whitehurst has the potential to be the guy after Hasselbeck, or if he is a career back-up type and the QB position needs to be looked at again in the 2011 draft.

If he isn’t the guy, we can cut our losses and move on at a much more affordable price than a first round QB selection would be.

For now we can focus on filling our numerous holes that have more to do with Hasselbeck’s poor play than anything else.

Look for the Seahawks to go after a safety and offensive linemen in the first round.

If nothing else, we can all be thankful we won’t be wasting a first round pick on Clausen.

I would rather give up a later round selection than make a poor choice in the first. We can recover from a bad trade much easier than a bad top 15 draft pick.